Damaged
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: After Rebekah has her body back, she is plagued by nightmares and doesn't feel that she can trust anyone anymore. Her brothers begin to grow concerned but are unsure of how to help her if all she wants is to be left alone.


**Had to write this after what Esther did to Rebekah in 3x19. **

**This is set after Rebekah gets her body back (which better happen!) and Esther is dead, (which better happen!)**

**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

Rebekah was trapped in the dark, screeching, trying to lash out, to run, to escape, but she could not move, she was paralysed. The only sense that was working was her hearing, her ears were filled with screams of pain and rage and loss, she wanted to block the sound out but she couldn't move her hands and she couldn't even open her mouth to drown out the noise.

She finally broke through the barrier and a shriek exploded from her mouth and she began to thrash to try and get up but she was being pinned down.

"Rebekah! Bekah!" Her eyes flew open and she found that she was looking at Klaus, he seemed exasperated, but concerned.

Elijah and Kol released their grips on her arms, she glanced around her bedroom, she had thrown the covers off her bed with her tossing and turning, and her pillows were scattered across the floor.

"I'm fine." She gasped, desperately wanting them all to leave. She needed to be alone.

"That would be much more convincing if this wasn't the third time that this has happened this week." Nik told her, with his usual sensitivity.

"I'm alright, honestly." She attempted to convince them, failing to keep the tremor from her voice. "I.. I just need some time to myself." She wanted to sound confident, the way she always had before…. Before. She wanted to throw on her arrogant, self-assured air and order her brothers to go away, but she knew it would not work and the failed attempt would be worse in this case than not attempting at all.

Klaus was sitting on the bed next to her, Kol was standing almost right beside him and Elijah was on her other side. "Come on, Rebekah would like to sleep in peace." He instructed the others reluctantly, she smiled at him gratefully, pretending not to notice that it wobbled.

Nik leaned forwards and kissed her head lightly before leaving, he had taken to doing things like that recently, she knew he was still feeling guilty about having been fooled by their mo- by _her_.

"You can't go on like this, Bekah." Kol said, before being ushered out by Elijah.

As soon as the door closed behind them she curled up in a ball, pulled the covers over her head and began to cry. "If you're watching me now, _Esther, _hear this: I hope wherever you are, you are suffering" She hissed hatefully, no punishment could be vicious enough for that foul woman, that poor excuse for a mother. _I hope she's in pain, so much agony it's driving her insane._

_No you don't. You still love her, you hope that she's been reunited with Mikael, Aaron and Henrich, and that they're happy._

"Shut up, just shut up." She whispered, clenching her eyes shut, the tears leaking out despite this. "Anyway, even if they are reunited, will her werewolf lover be there too? That ought to make things more interesting." She mumbled in a way that would have been snide if it weren't for the sniffling.

The following morning, she felt like death… no pun intended. She had not slept after her latest nightmare and she was exhausted. Sadly for her it was a Tuesday, which meant another day at Mystic Falls High. Yippee! She thought sarcastically.

She showered and dressed, being overly careful about what she was wearing, she did not want to turn up to school dressed as something from a circus, it took longer than it would have ordinarily to establish that what she was wearing was acceptably fashionable.

She strutted into her living room, giving off a feeble ghost of her past confidence. Elijah and Klaus were already dressed and sitting there, Kol was still in bed, presumably as he would be until at least noon.

"Perhaps you should stay home today. There's no point in going to school of you are going to be unable to pay attention." Elijah suggested, seemingly offhandedly, but she knew better.

"I'm not tired, Elijah. In fact, I feel fantastic." She announced with a fake cheeriness before heading out of the door. She sighed deeply, as tempted as she was to accept Elijah's offer of staying home and crawling back into bed, the only thing worse than going to school, was staying at the mansion. Her brothers would be worried and ask awkward questions, at school nobody would notice that she was behaving unusually. She almost laughed at the irony, the only time she was glad that nobody outside her family cared about her.

"Rebekah? Rebekah? Rebekah!" Her head snapped up suddenly and she saw that Matt was staring at her oddly.

"What?" It came out sharper than intended, he held his hands up.

"I was just going to ask if this is okay?" He was holding up what she presumed to be a poster that someone had designed for the school dance, she cleared her throat, "yes, yes it's fine." She had no idea what she had just looked at, for all she knew he had held up a dog eared pizza hut menu.

"Is everything alright with you? You seem… different." He inquired kindly, his blue eyes friendly.

"I'm alright, honestly, just… thinking." On any other day she would have appreciated his concern and, possibly, milked it but today all she wanted was for people to ignore her existence. However, it seemed that the universe disagreed with her plans. After history, Alaric asked her to stay behind.

"What?" She asked rudely.

"Is there something the matter? You seem, and have seemed, distracted for days now." He glanced at her expectantly, as though he actually thought she was going to share anything with _him_, her skin still crawled at the sight of him.

"Even if there was anything the matter with me, do not be dense enough to think for a _second _that I would ever tell you. The man who was allied with Esther, after she stole my body and tried to murder my family. You are a disgusting string of phlegm at the bottom of humanity, you murdered your own kind, you tried to murder your friends. Don't forget for one second how easy it would be for me to end you." She snarled furiously, all of her pent up hatred for him spilling out, her fangs descending dangerously.

Alaric backed up slightly and watched as she stormed away, he had faced vampires before but he was a fairly smart man. Smart enough to know that he couldn't kill Rebekah and even trying to would result in his torture and death by either her or one of her brothers.

Rebekah couldn't stand to stay in this pathetic school any longer, with all of those pathetic, self-righteous people. She strode through the corridors quickly, other students took one look at her thunderous expression and moved out of her way automatically, perhaps due to a deep rooted survival instinct. One teacher, obviously lacking this, grabbed her arm to prevent her from leaving, she whirled around and glowered poisonously at him, "you're going to let me leave, and you're going to go and teach a class, whether you have a class to teach now or not." She compelled him before smiling sweetly at him as he released her arm with a vacant smile.

She carried on walking outside, she did not have a car, mainly because she couldn't drive. Nik or Elijah would sometimes pick her up if she asked, but it was only half way though school and they were the last people she wanted to see.

It suddenly hit her that she had nowhere to go. She could not go home, she could not go to the grill. There was a good chance that somebody she wanted to avoid would be in both of those places, and she had no friends she could go to.

She walked morosely to the only place that she imagined would be solitary- the woods, she could be alone there for a while at least.

She sat down on a log, buried her face in her hands and let out a round of gut wrenching sobs.

Alaric sat at his desk and deliberated, he had heard from Elena that Rebekah had left the school, and he could not help but be anxious. Not just for the population of Mystic falls, but for her too. He still felt terrible for the role he had played in nearly killing a whole race of people, and for not telling anybody about what Esther had done to her daughter. He was fully aware that his alter ego had done many things that he would be feeling regret for for the rest of his life. He certainly felt no liking for the Mikaelsons but, he felt he owed Rebekah one, or two, or three.

He sighed and picked up his phone, he had the number of one original- Elijah, the only one whose presence he could bear for more than a minute or so.

"Hello?" A calm, polite voice spoke.

"Elijah, it's Alaric Saltzman." He frowned at himself, _how many other Alaric's do you think he knows? _"I'm calling about Rebekah."

"Is she alright?" His tone only changed minimally, but for Elijah this was probably an extreme reaction.

"She's been acting… strangely. And now she's gone, she left school and I just thought you'd like to know."

"Thank you." The original hung up.

Alaric sighed, sometimes he really wished that he'd just stayed in his normal, boring life, he would not have to deal with any of this crap.

Rebekah had managed to pull herself together somewhat, the weeping had stopped, but she could not bring herself to move. She liked it out here, it was quiet, she could be all by herself, nobody to be suspicious about… nobody to betray her.

She jumped as her phone began to ring and shocked her, it was Matt, wanting to know if she was alright.

An hour later she was at Matt's house, they were sharing a bottle of whiskey- left over from last time his mum was there- and talking.

He was not drinking much, he had to be up for school in the morning and work after that. He watched with some concern as she threw back shot after shot.

"Bekah, I think you've had enough." He reached out to take the bottle from her, she slapped his hand away, not drunk enough to use her vampire strength.

"I haven't had nearly enough, and I am sick of _men _telling me what to do. I had enough of that in the middle ages. And… every other age after that- bastards!"

He groaned, _great_, she was at that stage a woman got to while drinking, when men became the worst things that had ever happened to, not just them, but the world in general. Both his mother and Vikki had gotten into that state many times before.

"Trust me, Bekah, you've had enough." He said assuredly.

"I don't trust you. I can't trust anybody." Her lips began to tremble and tears, seemingly from nowhere, rolled from her eyes.

_Oh crap! _He thought in a panic, and tried to think of anything helpful to say. Instead he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and just allowed her to cry into his shirt.

Elijah was thinking, as Klaus paced up and down across the room and Kol stared intensely at both of them, waiting for one of his brothers to come up with a good idea.

"I say we rip part the town until we find her." He repeated his initial, and only, idea.

"That's an excellent idea Kol, going on the assumption that we want to upset her further and risk never finding her again."

"Don't exaggerate, Elijah. Even Nik succeeded in finding Katerina after _five hundred _years of searching."

"Kol, have you ever noticed that when there is a crisis, nobody asks for your opinion? Take a minute to think about the reasons behind that." Klaus snapped, glaring at his little brother.

Kol rolled his eyes, he knew the answer to that one, Elijah and Nik still thought of him as a child, his opinion did not often matter to them. Not that he was going to voice that observation considering the mood they were in.

"I think we need to talk to everybody in town, that little witch Bonnie if possible, she might be able to find her." The hybrid suggested.

As Elijah was about to reply the doorbell rang and Klaus used his vampire speed to reach it and open it irritably. To the surprise of everybody, Matt Donovan walked in, half carrying a stumbling Rebekah.

"What have you done to her?" Kol demanded, stalking towards the blonde human. "If you've taken advantage of her I will-"

"Don't be silly, Kol!" Rebekah laughed drunkenly, "Matt is the… n…nicest boy in the _whole _wide world! Nicer than Damon, he's an arse."

Elijah seemed tempted to chuckle, but his feelings of responsibility for his sister took over and he took her weight from Matt. "Thank you, Matt." He nodded in acknowledgment at the teenager and Niklaus handed him a wad of dollar bills, Elijah did not see how much but guessed at a lot. The boy tried to protest, but Klaus waved him away.

Once Matt had left, Elijah scooped Rebekah up and carried her up to her bedroom, he heard his brothers following. He lay her on the bed and pulled her lethally heeled shoes off. As he did this, Klaus pushed her up enough to tie her long tangled hair back.

"Th..thanks…" She mumbled almost incoherently. Elijah pulled the duvet over her and gave her a kiss on the head. "Goodnight, Rebekah. We'll talk in the morning." He promised and started to leave the room.

"Love you!" She slurred loudly.

"You too." He replied slightly uncomfortably.

Klaus and Kol wished her a goodnight and left the room, leaving her all alone. Exactly as she had wanted all day, she felt a wave of severe dislike for herself as she realised that she didn't want to be alone anymore.

The next morning, Rebekah was convinced that her head was about to explode, at least she hoped it would. The only positive to come from this situation was that she had had a dreamless sleep for the first time in over a month.

She was debating whether it was best to get up now, or to wait until Elijah came in and started their talk. She knew she couldn't avoid him forever, Elijah was extremely persistent when it came to his siblings welfare.

The decision was taken away from her when the door swung open and Elijah stepped in, followed by Nik, who grinned when he saw her ,undoubtedly disastrous, appearance.

"Are we going to have a serious discussion?" She asked, half jokingly.

Klaus made himself comfortable by climbing up next to her on the bed and laying back casually, but she knew him better than that. He was worried, but of course, he'd sooner stab himself in the foot than tell her so. "So… come on… spill your guts out." He invited.

"Remind me again, why I agreed to let you be a part of this conversation?" Elijah questioned.

"Because it was either me or Kol."

"Ah, yes, that would be why."

Elijah surprised his sister greatly, by pulling a chair up beside her bed and holding her hand. "It's alright, Rebekah, you know you can tell us anything."

Klaus raised his eyebrows at that one, there were certain things he never wanted his sister to tell him, but felt that now was not the time to mention this.

"I.. I don't really know how to start. I can't sleep, whenever I do I… I remember." At this point she began to furiously blink back her tears, she had done enough crying, crying was not going to solve anything. "I remember when… _mother _was in my body. I was still there, it wasn't like being asleep, it was like being paralysed. I couldn't move, I couldn't see anything and I couldn't even shout for help. In the nightmare all I can hear is screaming, you two and Kol screaming. Damon, Stefan, Caroline, Tyler, I can hear them all dying, because that's what she wanted. She wanted to kill all vampires, she wanted to wipe us all out to save herself." She fought hard against the quiver in her voice, she needed to stay strong.

"What do you mean, to save herself?" Elijah inquired gently.

"After Nik killed her… the first time, she couldn't go to the other side, at least not properly. She told you, that she _felt the pain of every victim_… literally. That was her punishment for _betraying nature_."

"She got what she deserved then." Klaus insisted, throwing his arm around her.

"I'm so torn. One part of me hopes that she's back there, that she's stuck there for the rest of eternity, but then the other side of me wants her to find peace. To be with the others again. I don't know whether to love her or hate her."

"You aren't the only one of us who feels that way." Elijah comforted her, "I'm split between loving her because she was my mother, and hating her because if she ever loved us as much as she should have done, we never came first, and she was willing to betray us all. I feel much the same way about Finn. As do Niklaus and Kol."

"I feel that way about Mikael." Nik contributed honestly. "You don't have to feel guilt for that, it's …normal, human, whatever you want to call it."

"Then you should stop feeling so guilty about not noticing that I wasn't myself." She challenged, raising her eyebrows.

"Who said I felt guilty?"

She looked at him for a few seconds, he wordlessly accepted defeat.

"I saw that you were different but I assumed it was because our mother had just died, not because it was her."

"She had a thousand years to watch me, she knew how to be non-suspicious. Anyway, you would have noticed eventually. You aren't quite that moronic."

"Thank you, dear sister."

"Is it impossible for the two of you to have a perfectly serious conversation?" Elijah wondered rhetorically.

"I suppose we could but it would be unnatural." Rebekah pointed out anyway, Elijah nodded his agreement after a brief pause.

They both glanced to her again, waiting for her to carry on, "I..I'm so scared that… that something like that will happen to me again. I feel…like I can't trust anyone anymore."

"Rebekah… we will never let anything like that happen to you again because, after how worried he was last night, Elijah is never going to let you go anywhere without one of us, asides from school, again."

"How worried I was? If I recall correctly, it was you who was wearing a hole on the floor."

Klaus awkwardly coughed and gazed at the floor. Rebekah giggled, "aww, Nik." She mocked.

He gave her a teasing glare and responded with an evil smile. "Yes, I was very concerned, so concerned I might in fact have to pay Matt a visit and fulfil my duty as an older brother, by threatening to do terrible things to him of he ever hurts you."

Rebekah cursed, she knew he was going to get revenge for her interrogation of Caroline.

She was now torn over whether or not she was better off without her brothers after all.

**The end.**

**This ended up being much more depressing than intended, but I imagine that after having your mother take over your body and try to kill your family and your whole race, you'd be pretty damaged.**

**Please review.**


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